An Austrian winter retreat at Hundertwasser's Bad Blumau spa

The Rogner-Bad Blumau Spa Resort south of Vienna is the kind of funky design, high concept hotel and spa complex that tends to get featured on travel shows and in magazines a lot – but the kind of place that I never usually get to visit. When my sister visited me in Europe and insisted that this was a place she’d always dreamed of visiting, I checked it out and in the middle of a snowy winter, we checked in.

If you’re not familiar with Friedenreich Hundertwasser’s style of art and design, you’ll soon get an eyeful at the Bad Blumau resort. Hundertwasser didn’t like straight lines, didn’t like repetition (every single window at the resort is a different shape or framed with a different material), and loved bright colours. Some buildings of the resort looked more like a children’s drawing than a real architecturally sound place to stay, and when we arrived during unseasonally strong snow, it really looked just like a huge playground.

Inside the buildings the fun continues. Corridors linking various parts of the resort together are all crooked and uneven, with the floors tending to slope in different directions with particular symbolic meanings. Inside the hotel rooms, crazy windows and round-edged tiles are highlights, and I took a particular liking to the shower and bathroom design – it was just so much fun to look at.

But the absolute best part of the Bad Blumau Resort are the spas and pool areas. There are several options, both indoor and outdoor, and we made sure we tried them all (more than once!). There’s a large indoor/outdoor hot spring pool – you can lie on the poolside chairs inside, paddle around in the water undercover, or swim under a “gate” to get into the outside area of the pool. It’s all fed from a natural hot spring and the water apparently has lots of healthy, healing properties. For us, the more exciting thing was we were luxuriating in the nearly 100 degree water and having snow falling on our heads. Further on you can find the Vulkania hot spring (complete with fake glowing red volcano) where the water is even warmer, and you are advised not to stay in it too long.

The resort also includes a couple of restaurants and bars, and although we were a bit concerned about the abundance of “extra healthy” food, it was all so deliciously prepared that we didn’t mind. In fact, the only “bad” thing about “Bad” Blumau is that I can’t afford to live there permanently.